Chapter 1. Introduction -- Chapter 2. From War Financier to Bankers’ Bank -- Chapter 3. Central Banks under the Gold … route taken by the Federal Reserve and, much later, by the European Central Bank. The gold standard, floating exchange rates …

I provide a structured comparison of the nineteenth-century classical gold standard and the Euro, basing my analysis …, but in both cases such discipline was erratic. But whereas the gold standard was always a contingent monetary regime …, there is nothing contingent about Euro-area membership. Finally, the gold standard operated in a simpler political setting …